Page 121 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

IntroductionThe Focus 2017 takes a look at case studies of good practice in the use of digital technologies for the conservation, analysis and dissemination of cultural heritage.The concept of heritage has progressively broadened over the past decades and is currently very wide-ranging. According to the de nitions derived from the UNESCO World Heritage conventions, cultural heritage refers to monuments, complexes and sites; natural heritage consists of geological formations and natural landscapes; and intangible heritage refers to all cultural manifestations of peoples, including customs, representations, expressions, knowledge and techniques that are part of their cultural heritage.This fact was taken into account when putting together the Focus 2017, which studies cultural heritage – chie y archaeological heritage and immovable artistic and monumental heritage, though it also reports a few cases of experiences involving movable assets or intangible heritage that are particularly signi cant and/or closely linked to cultural heritage.Although cultural heritage encompasses art-historical objects in the care of museums, these were analysed in the Focus 2015,1 which dealt exclusively with museums and digital technologies.The relationship between digital technologies and cultural heritage goes back a long way and has been strengthened in recent decades by the exponential growth in technologies and their applicability in the culture sector. The possibili- ties o ered by digital technologies in this area – some yet to be discovered – are many and have great potential, just as the eld has many needs which can be codi ed through technology andpresented in a coherent manner for our society and for the future generations.For an example of this satisfactory relationship, it is su cient to point out that many of the projects involving digital technologies and cul- tural heritage are being funded by the European Union’s research and innovation programmes. The fact that the 7th Framework Programme2 (2004 to 2013) was followed by another pro- gramme called Horizon 2020,3 whose main objectives include the innovative use of cultural heritage as an opportunity for investment, economic growth, development of new markets, job creation and social cohesion, attests to the growing interest in cultural heritage as an instru- ment of development through new technologies.There are further signs of this importance our society attaches to cultural heritage. An example is the many international and national events focused speci cally on research combining heritage and new technologies, such as the International Conference on Digital Heritage- EUROMED,4 the DCH International Confer- ence,5 the Conference on Cultural Heritageand New Technologies - CHNT,6 the Digital Heritage International Congress7 (including the Digital Heritage Awards), which was last heldin Granada and brings together the experiences of other international congresses, the Science and Engineering in Arts, Heritage & Archae- ology (SEAHA) Conference,8 the Congreso Internacional Patrimonio Cultural y las Nuevas Tecnologías9 started up by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Mexico), and the Bienal de Restauración y Gestión del Patrimonio - AR&PA10 (Spain), to mention only a few. They all bring together researchers and sector profes- sionals, who share and make known the most innovative experiences in the eld of heritage.Given the underlying importance of the theme of this year’s AC/E Annual Report, the Focus 2017 gives an overview of the application of digital technologies in heritage, concentrating on threeAC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2017121The use of digital technologies in the conservation, analysis and dissemination of cultural heritage